Fire Threatens Arizona Equine Community

This is always a scary thing to hear in the equine community Over 250 horses have been moved in Arizona, which is bringing a big hault to any horse therapy or equine courses for a while. Lets hope this fire will die down and the community reamins unthreatened. 

"While firefighters struggle to contain the Monument wildfire in Arizona, the blaze is challenging members of the Arizona equine community who are caring for horses evacuated from the fire's path.

The Monument Fire broke out on June 12 in the Huachuca Mountains and scorched valley communities, including those in Cochise and Santa Cruz counties (located in the southeastern part of the state) forcing the evacuation of residents and their livestock. Bill Paxton, public information officer for the Northern Rockies Fire Incident Management Team, said since the blaze broke out, horses from several communities were evacuated to equine facilities including the Sierra Vista Riding Club, the Cochise County Fairgrounds, the Double Take Equestrian Center, and the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds.

"People with horse trailers were assembling in mall parking lots and just being dispatched to places horses needed evacuation," said Linda Ford, spokesperson for the Santa Cruz Fairgrounds where 22 horses are currently under care. "In some cases where owners were not home or fence gates were locked, animal control personnel cut fences to get the animals out."

Theresa Warrell, cofounder and president of the Horse'n Around Rescue Ranch and Foundation in Palominas, was among the volunteers assisting in the evacuation effort.

"About 250 horses were brought to the Sierra Vista Riding Club," Warrell said. "It was like a tent city for horses."

Since the evacuation, horse owners and volunteers have been caring for the animals, Ford said. Meanwhile, evacuation facility operators have received widespread support in the form of donations of everything from hay bales to muck buckets.

"The amount of help we've had is amazing," Ford said. "People have come from all over with donations."

When owners will be allowed to bring their animals home is uncertain. As of June 22, the fire was 45% contained, Paxton said.

But Warrell, who relocated the 23 animals in her care on June 12 just before the fire consumed her 380-acre property, is concerned about animals whose homes have been totally destroyed.

"This fire was so hot it scorched everything; there's ash on the ground four inches deep," Warrell said. "We're already looking at all land options we can for our horses, but a lot of horses have no home to go back to."In the fire's aftermath, Ford believes some displaced owners will need help caring for their animals until they can rebuild their homes, barns, and pastures.

"There's going to have to be some system to provide those people with affordable places to keep their horses and with affordable hay supplies and feed," Ford said.

Meanwhile, Warrell expects her rescue and others will step up to take in animals abandoned after the blaze."

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An Interview on Making Mistakes

This article was posted recently on Psychcentral.com and I think it's very relative to horse therapy. In equine courses people often ask "how" to do a certain task they are given, during the therapy. In horse therapy though, there is no "right" way to complete a task, it is only when the person feels they have completed it. Heres the article all on making "mistakes"... 

"1. I was very intrigued by the research and physiological components behind making mistakes? Could you briefly describe why dopamine is an important contributor to learning from mistakes?

Alina: Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that plays a role in how we process errors. Dopamine neurons generate patterns based on experiment — if this happens, that will follow. The Iowa Gambling Task, developed by neuroscientists helps prove this point. A player is given four decks of cards and $2,000 of play money. Each card tells the player whether he won or lost money, and the object is to win as much money as possible.

But the cards are rigged, with two decks paying out small amounts of money, like $50, but rarely causing a player to lose money. The other two decks have high payouts, but also high losses. So if a player pulls from the first deck — the one that gives low but steady payouts — she will come out far richer in the end. It takes an average of 50 cards before people began to pull more regularly from the more profitable first deck, and about 80 cards before they can actually explain it.

But by hooking up players to a machine that measured the electrical conductance of their skin, neuroscientists found that players became more nervous after taking only 10 cards from the less-profitable decks — although they weren’t even aware of it.

This is due to dopamine, which figured out the patterns before the player’s brain registered it consciously. When scientists watched a patient undergoing brain surgery for epilepsy while playing the Iowa Gambling Task — with local anesthesia but remaining conscious — the dopamine neurons immediately stopped firing when the player chose from the bad deck. The patient experienced negative emotion and learned not to draw from the deck again. But if the choice was accurate, he felt pleasure of being correct and wanted to do the same thing again.

People who produce too little dopamine in their bodies, such as those who suffer from Parkinson’s disease, tend to learn more from negative than positive feedback. But once they took medication that boosted brain levels of dopamine, they reacted more strongly to positive feedback than negative feedback.

So the best way to become an expert in your field is focus on your mistakes, to consciously consider the errors being internalized by your dopamine neurons.

2. If you were to give a perfectionist instructions on how to accept her mistakes more easily and learn from them, what would they be?

Alina: In some ways, perfectionism has become a catch-all phrase. People who are conscientious and have very high standards aren’t necessarily perfectionists. And there is certainly nothing wrong with striving to be the best in certain areas. The trouble is when we believe that we can be perfect at everything, and if we’re not, we’re a failure. When mistakes, no matter how small, are a crisis. These are super (sometimes called maladaptive) perfectionists.

For those kind of perfectionists, it’s necessary to internalize the concept that the point of a task or job is not to do it perfectly the first time, but to learn and develop. Super-perfectionists need to be honest with themselves — even if they publicly bemoan this attribute in themselves, do they secretly think they’re right in their approach to life and everyone else is wrong? Why is it so important to be flawless?

Perfectionism is not necessarily something to be proud of. Research has found that those high in perfectionism did worse on a writing task than those lower in perfectionism when judged by college professors who were blind to the difference in the participants. It may be because maladaptive perfectionists avoid writing tasks, and avoid having others review and comment on their work to a greater extent than non-perfectionists — and therefore don’t practice and learn.

These super-perfectionists are motivated by a fear of failure rather than the opportunity to learn. They consider anything less than 100 percent — say 98 percent — inadequate. If this sounds like you, you need to rethink whether your perfectionism is serving you well.

Super perfectionists can try to break tasks down into more manageable bites, so they don’t feel overwhelmed. They can learn to prioritize and set deadlines, so they won’t get subsumed in every project to the detriment of other needs. They can work on getting feedback at an early point in a project to get a reality check. Most of us fear hearing criticism, no matter how constructive, even if we’re not uber-perfectionists. But the more we get it and find it’s not as frightening as we think it will be — that we can survive, and yes, even learn! — the easier it is to hear it in the future.

3. Are there any exercises we can do to remind ourselves that perfectionism is a myth and that error is part of being human?

Alina: We really do need to keep telling ourselves — and others — that perfection is a myth. It’s not easy in a culture that prizes the concept of effortlessness, success and results over the process. But we need to constantly remind ourselves that every time we take a risk, move out of our comfort zone and try something new, we’re opening ourselves up to potentially making more mistakes. The greater the risks and challenges we take on, the greater the likelihood that we’ll mess up somewhere along the way — but also the greater the likelihood that we’ll discover something new and get the deep satisfaction that comes from accomplishment.

We also have to acknowledge that screwing up doesn’t feel good. I’m not saying we should cheer when we err. But we need to figure out what went wrong, apologize and make amends if necessary and move on. If we spend so much time beating ourselves up, we’re not learning any lesson from the mistake.

In most cases, the mistake may feel bad in the moment, but those feelings pass. Often days or weeks later we can’t even remember what the error was.

I’ll end on a quote from a 10-year-old boy who was learning to ride horses and not doing as well as he wanted. Although he was disappointed in where he placed in a few competitions, he told a reporter, “If everything always went well in riding, why would it ever be fun? If you were always perfect, nothing would ever be amazing.""

Source: http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2011/06/20/better-by-mistake-an-intervi...

 

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6 things that say "HAPPY", but do otherwise

People come into horse therapy all the time with "make-shift" ways to make themselves happy. Equine courses have shown that these things all seem like they will do good on the "outside", but in reality these "happy-makers" can actually do the opposite! Lets go through the list...

"1. Comforting yourself with a “treat.”

Often, the things we choose as “treats” aren’t good for us. The pleasure lasts a minute, but then feelings of guilt, loss of control, and other negative consequences just deepen the lousiness of the day. So when you find yourself thinking, “I’ll feel better after I have a pint of ice cream… a cigarette… a new pair of jeans,” ask yourself — will it really make you feel better? It might make you feel worse. In particular, beware of…

2. Letting yourself off the hook.

I’ve found that I sometimes get a real happiness boost from giving something up, quitting something, or breaking a bad habit. When you’re feeling down, you might be tempted to let yourself off the hook, to think, “I’ll allow myself to skip my run today, I need a break.” In fact, sticking to a resolution will boost your sense of self-steem and self-control. So not letting yourself off the hook might do more to boost your happiness. I often let myself off the hook by being very messy — “I’m too agitated to deal with putting these papers away now” — but then the disorder just makes me feel more overwhelmed and anxious.

3. Turning off your phone.

Studies show that extroverts and introverts get a mood boost from connecting with other people. Although it can be tempting to isolate yourself when you’re feeling unhappy, you’re better off making plans with friends or family.

4. Venting your negative emotions.

Many people believe in the “catharsis hypothesis” and think that expressing anger is healthy-minded and relieves their feelings. Not so. Studies show that expressing anger aggressively only aggravates it; as Plutarch observed, “Anger, while in its beginning, often can be ended by silence, or neglect.” I’ve certainly found this to be true; once I get going, I can whip myself into a fury. It’s better to behave calmly.

5. Staying in your pajamas all day.

One of the most helpful things I’ve learned in my happiness research is that although we think that we act because of the way we feel, in fact, we often feel because of the way we act. As improbable as this sounds, it really works. Sometimes it can be fun to hang out in your sweats all day, but if you’re feeling lethargic, powerless, or directionless, not getting dressed is going to make you feel worse. Put on your clothes — including your shoes — so you feel prepared for whatever the day might offer. While you’re at it, make your bed.

6. Having a drink."

Alcohol affects people differently, and even if you don’t have a drinking problem, alcohol can still be a drag on your happiness. Speaking for myself, alcohol is not a happiness-booster. I more or less gave up drinking because I realized that even just one glass of wine or a beer made me feel belligerent and indiscreet — and then desperately sleepy. Don’t assume that a drink will help you unwind, or feel more convivial — it sure doesn’t have that effect on me.

 

Have you ever tried to cheer yourself up using a strategy that just made you feel worse, in the end? Or what are more effective ways to beat the blues?"

Source: http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2011/06/08/why-these-6-happiness-booste...

 

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Horse Personality

Every horse has it's own personality, but what effects it? Just like humans, horses have very unique personalities and this will effect the way they respond in horse therapy and equine courses. Here is an article that analyzes horse personality and what effects it. It asks the question, "Does a horse's daily job affect his or her personality?"

"Horses are generally suited to a particular job based on breeding, conformation, and the individual differences in temperament that we think of as "personality." For example, a sleek, long-legged Thoroughbred is more suited to flat racing than a rotund Shetland pony. But what about the other way around? Does a horse's daily job affect his or her personality?

To answer the question, a group of French researchers recently used ethology methods (the scientific study of animal behavior) to test "emotionality" of 119 geldings used for a specific kind of work. Emotionality is the measure of emotional reactivity to a stimulus.

"We know from a previous study that work can be associated with chronic behavioral disorders," says Martine Hausberger, PhD, director of the Department of Ethology at the University of Rennes. "We wanted to see if there were changes in the emotional reactivity of horses when exposed to different types of work."

The horses (89 French Saddlebreds and 30 Anglo Arabs, all housed at the National Riding School at Saumur) were divided into six groups according to discipline: eventing, show jumping, advanced riding school, dressage, high school (i.e., more advanced, technical training; includes the movements performed by the Lipizzan Stallions), and voltige (vaulting). All were geldings from 4 to 20 years old, were ridden for one hour per day in the designated discipline, and had been in the current discipline for at least one year.

"Subjects lived under the same conditions (same housing, same food), were of the same sex, (were) one of two breeds, and had not been genetically selected for their current type of work," Hausberger noted in the study.

Following a workday at the assigned job, the researchers measured each horse's emotional reactivity by observing his responses to three increasingly challenging tests:

• The "arena test," during which the horse was released alone into a familiar arena;
• The "novel object test," in which the horse is placed in an area with a new object to investigate; and
• The "bridge test," where the horse was led over an unknown object built with a foam mattress.

After reviewing the collected data, the researchers determined that the horses' type of work seemed to affect their responses to emotional challenges.

In both the arena test and the novel object test, the dressage and the high school horses "showed more high locomotive and excited behavioral patterns, such as snorting, tail raised, or vigilance." The latter quality was defined in the study as when "the horse stands still and holds its neck high, with intently oriented head and ears," and indicated that they were more reactive to the tests. Conversely, the jumping horses were most prone to approach and touch the novel object.

In the bridge test, jumping horses and vaulting horses crossed the bridge in the least amount of time, followed by eventers, advanced school horses, high school, and dressage horses.

Cumulatively, the team noted that the vaulting horses "showed the quietest profiles (e.g. slow walk and rolling in the dirt) when released," and the dressage and high school horses showed the greatest emotional response.

According to the researchers, "The fact that dressage riders expect their horses to react quickly to their orders might develop their 'sensitiveness' to the point that can easily lead to nervousness, and by repetition in the long term, become an integral part of the horse's personality."

Conversely, they continued, "jumping and vaulting horses have more chances to express locomotion needs ... which might explain their quieter responses to the tests in a handling fear situation."

On average, the eventing horses and advanced school horses were more sensitive (emotionally reactive) than the jumpers and vaulters, but less sensitive than the dressage and high school horses, the researchers noted. No explanation was given as to the possible reason."

Source: http://www.thehorse.com/viewarticle.aspx?ID=18337&source=rss&utm_sour...

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Lonliness

We all go through lonliness at some point in our life and we see a lot of it in horse therapy. Equine courses generally help people get through times of deep lonliness, but you dont always have that option avaliable! Here are six tip for keeping away from that ugly thing called "Lonliness"... 

"1. Remember that although the distinction can be difficult to draw, loneliness and solitude are different. White observes, “It’s entirely reasonable to feel lonely yet still feel as though you need some time to yourself.” Loneliness feels draining, distracting, and upsetting; desired solitude feels peaceful, creative, restorative.

2. Nurturing others — raising children, teaching, caring for animals — helps to alleviate loneliness.

3. Keep in mind that to avoid loneliness, many people need both a social circle and an intimate attachment. Having one of these elements may still leave you feeling lonely.

4. Work hard to get your sleep. One of the most common indicators of loneliness is broken sleep — taking a long time to fall asleep, waking frequently, and feeling sleepy during the day. Sleep deprivation, under any circumstances, brings down people’s moods, makes them more likely to get sick, and dampens their energy, so it’s important to tackle this issue.

5. Try to figure out what’s missing from your life. White observes that making lots of plans with friends didn’t alleviate her loneliness. “What I wanted,” she writes, “was the quiet presence of another person.” She longed to have someone else just hanging around the house with her. The more clearly you see what’s lacking, the more clearly you’ll see possible solutions.

6. Take steps to connect with other people (to state the obvious). Negative emotions like loneliness, envy, and guilt have an important role to play in a happy life; they’re big, flashing signs that something needs to change. The pain of loneliness can prod you to connect with other people. Unfortunately, loneliness itself can make people feel more negative, critical, and judgemental. If you recognize that your loneliness may be affecting you in that way, you can take steps to counter it."

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